ECA Illustration dept. blog

March 6, 2017

Postgraduate student Katie Chappell is going to Switzerland!

I have been selected to go and work with a group of journalism students on the St Gallen Symposium, a student-run global forum. In May I’ll head to Switzerland for a week to listen to speakers and create illustrations which will go into the official magazine which gets sent out to speakers and attendees after the symposium is over. The symposium has been going for 47 years and i’ll be the first illustrator to work on the magazine team!

I heard about this opportunity in the ECA email list. I had to pitch a few ideas of articles I’d like to illustrate which fit the theme of dilemma of disruption. I mentioned Brexit, technology and the Shakespeare quote “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” because really, not all disruption is bad. Some disruption is just change and interruption. The word disruption has negative connotations.

Right now i’m working on a big illustration all about smart phones and the huge disruption of that technology in our lives.

The very very early first draft of the magazine is underway and it looks like there’ll be a lot of mention of Trump, globalization and technology.